Ok - so is it normal for baby boys to be SO messy and destructive?

[Ceebee74]

DS is 12 months old and just seems to cause chaos whatever he is doing!

He throws all his toys around rather than moving them ? we tidy up every evening and within 5 minutes of him being downstairs in the morning, stacking cups will have been thrown to all corners of the room, his walker will either have been tipped up so all the bricks have fallen out or the bricks will have been thrown around ? etc etc.

Food ? complete nightmare! He throws most things off the table (quite viciously), if he eats off a plate on the floor, the plate gets tipped up and food is rubbed into the floor (fortunately we have wooden floors ), it gets rubbed into the table (if not thrown on the floor).

We are going to a friend?s DS?s 1st birthday party this weekend and I am actually panicking about feeding him whilst we are there as he cannot eat without making a real mess (fine in your own home but in someone else?s). I keep putting off going to visit my parents for the same reason (although that is also partly due to sarcastic comments from my mum such as why is he making so much mess at his age, why is he still having bottles, can he not feed himself etc)

Is such destruction normal? Is it normal for a 1 year old to still be making so much mess with food ? it seems exactly the same, if not worse, than it did when we started weaning 6 months ago!

Now don?t get me wrong, I am not a ?clean? freak by any stretch of the imagination but even this has come as a shock to me!

Oh, Lord, mine is exactly the same. Messy wee man. And we ARE neat freaks!

tis the Law

this is a funny age, pre toddler, post baby, but little personalities developing, with bursts of frustration

and one year olds can be very strong willed

they don;t make a mess to p*ss you off, but because it is fun, and makes mummy shout and wave her arms, which is very amusing!

it is all about experimenting and learning, so throwing, hurling, rubbing, mashing and grabbing is normal

oh yes ooh yes! lol. mine is 17 months and still loves to make a mess. loves nothing more than going in the cupboards and pulling everything out- today it was the dry spaghetti - only cupboard without a lock! lol. and spread it all over hte kitchen floor. we ended up playing wiht it.

re the throwing thing - that iirc was a phase DS doesn't throw toys, but he does like to pull every - and I mean every toy out and sit in the middle of them.

re the eating in other peoples houses have your highchair and put it on a towel - then any mess is easily cleaned up.

we started finger painting - and ooh what a lovely mess that makes! lol.

Come and have tea with my 14 YEAR old DS, and have a peek in his bedroom. You'll see that this is completely normal, and will be going on for a while yet.

Ooooooohhhhh yes.
I have just finished clearing up the battlefield that is my kitchen after tea with my 14m and 2.7yo boys. Yes thats right I've got TWO of the mess monkeys!
Painting we do that strictly at the kitchen table as we have ancient table and solid floors so I can get a mop out if necessary. Its just part of being boys! Three mins after getting up the house is a bombsite, its what they do. The latest one is unrolling whole toilet rolls. So I hide them and am sat on the loo after a poo before I realise I can't remember where I hid it
The trick is to make tidying up before bed, part of the games.
There will be other kids just as bad at the party, stop stressing about it, its completely normal and if you stress about it he will pick up on it and BE WORSE. Trust me I know, thats why I am so laid back now - I didn't start out that way

Ooh I am glad that I have got years of this to come

Flibberty - afaik, there will only be 2 other children at the party - an 18-month old girl whose eating habits are presumably a bit better and the birthday boy who, although is 4 weeks younger than DS, can actually eat a sandwich without ripping it to bits and smearing it all over

We call our ds the master of mayhem...

smeering sarnies is one thing DS loves - esp tuna and mayo - the finger gets squdged in and all - no matter how much I try to say 'eat it nicely please DS' he grins and carrys on - alas i've given up - thinking's it's better to have him eat than make issues out of his mess

Pip - I completely agree. When he is at home, me and Dh don't react at all to his mess - we just let him get on and do it and then tidy up later - but I can't turn a blind eye in someone else's house!!